


My Blood Approves

by foil



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Angst with a Happy Ending, Gun Violence, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Minor Azumane Asahi/Nishinoya Yuu, Minor Tsukishima Kei/Yamaguchi Tadashi, they don't tell nishinoya nothing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2020-04-18
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:20:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23725225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foil/pseuds/foil
Summary: Hinata doesn't remember Kageyama after they are reincarnated. Kageyama remembers enough for the both of them.
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou/Kageyama Tobio
Comments: 9
Kudos: 92





	My Blood Approves

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you very much to [sarahenany](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarahenany) for the gracious encouragement!

He was a Hinata back then, too. Shawn "Shawnie" Hinata, born in LA to Japanese-American parents, a cover artist who predated YouTube and rose to local fame through hard work, luck, and astronomical vocal talent. Looked similar, too. Same hands. Same color hair. Same smile, and though it was less frequent, he always had one ready for Kageyama: the two of them exchanged promise rings the day Hinata was shot twice in the head by a crazed fan. He was nineteen years old. Kageyama wore the rings on a gold chain around his neck for the six months before he intentionally overdosed on fentanyl-cut cocaine at a party.

"As penance, he won't remember you when you're both reborn," explains his guardian angel—Nishinoya, Kageyama recognizes much, much later. "But buck up! You'll be teammates together on a badass sports team. I'll be there too, watching your backs. You're going to make it through this, Kageyama."

"Kageyama?" he asks. His name is Tom Kyle.

"Yes. Do you like it?"

"It's okay."

"You'll also love milk."

"I fucking hate milk."

"Not anymore, you don't."

And then everything was dark, and there was indescribable pain, and then that went away and he was Kageyama Tobio in Japan, Miyagi Prefecture, and life was comfortable and neutral and volleyball until the day he met Hinata again on a court in middle school.

"Where have you been?" Kageyama demands, shaking, fingers tangled in the net as he leans forward to be closer to Hinata Shouyou. Closer to his ex-lover's incredible, unchanged light. But Hinata didn't answer then, and the not-answering became a theme in their lives—even when they grew to be rivals, then friends.

"I don't think I believe in past lives," Hinata says, the one time Kageyama brings it up. They're half-watching some broadcasted romance movie together in Kageyama's den, Hinata hanging upside-down off the couch, nibbling on a cuticle. "I mean, if we _were_ someone else before, then were we someone before _that?_ Where does it end? Or start, I guess? And what's technically worth getting reborn for?"

"Love," says Kageyama quietly.

"Or maybe it has to do with closure," says Hinata, and doesn't elaborate. He flips over, snatches the remote from Kageyama's hand, and begins clicking through channels. "There's a game on somewhere, I can feel it. Bring us more snacks, Sappy-yama."

Kageyama fetches them more rice cakes and wasabi beef chips and sits on the floor close to the TV, so Hinata can't see the tears that are stinging in his eyes.

He has the dream again that night. Hinata gets caught leaving through the backdoor after a concert, and fans swamp him, shrieking and waving pens. Hinata laughs and starts signing shirts, posters, CD covers. Everyone is yelling. Kageyama lays a hand on the small of Hinata's back, the same hand that hosts the simple gold band that matches the one on Hinata's left ring finger. Kageyama is deliriously happy when Hinata turns and kisses him so fiercely that he bumps against the doorframe. _Love this_ , Hinata mouths, expression auroral with tenderness. _Love you._

_Love you too. Love you forever._

It's one of the last fans. A man not much older than they are, maybe twenty-three, clean-shaven and desperate with thin blond hair and lonely love-me eyes. Kageyama can't see his hands when he steps forward. Hinata hugs him without inhibition. Kageyama will never forget that. Hugs him like he's family. When he leans back, beaming, the man raises a pocket-sized gun, centers it between Hinata's eyes, and fires twice.

Kageyama doesn't remember much after that. Screaming. Catching Hinata as he crumpled backwards. There was blood everywhere, drenching Hinata's orange hair and Kageyama's lap and sticking in the creases of his palms. Hinata was only alive long enough to close his eyes. As the man turned the gun on himself, Hinata died in Kageyama's beseeching, blood-painted arms.

He wakes up gasping on sobs.

It's been two decades, and Kageyama's soul has never stopped crying.

"Maybe it's mercy," he tells Nishinoya the next day. "That he doesn't remember, I mean."

"Mmm, maybe," Nishinoya agrees. He's bumping a ball up and down on his forearms, his eyes focused as he follows it, somehow still so much like the being of light he was in the afterlife.

Kageyama stares at him. "Shouldn't you know this shit?"

"Hey, I only know what they told me!"

"Who's 'they?'"

"The—the Me. What I am to you now, They were to me then. I think it might've been Suga, but why wouldn't I remember him, if you remember me? It doesn't make any sense. Maybe there's some sort of—what's it called? Half-life?"

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

Nishinoya catches the ball and sighs. "I have absolutely no idea."

They regard each other for a long moment. Then Nishinoya smiles at him, small and sheepish, and Kageyama can't help but smile softly back.

"Asahi-san owned a bakery," says Nishinoya. "We lived together in Borgo a Mozzano. He was allergic to cats, but he had four anyway, and he would always wake up before me and shower so he'd be clean when he kissed me good morning. I think that's why I'm an early bird now. Wanna be ready. Ready if he ever remembers that he loved me."

"Nishinoya," says Kageyama. His throat is closing up.

Nishinoya bumps his elbow, winks. "It's okay. It never stops hurting, but it's worth it, seeing him happy. You know a little something about that, too."

Kageyama thinks of Hinata. Biking to school, racing Kageyama to the gym doors. Skipping on his way to the bathroom. Singing unselfconsciously when he thinks no one is listening (his voice is nowhere as good as it used to be, but it's _his_ , and it's beautiful). Last time Kageyama caught him belting out some anime theme in the clubroom, Hinata shoved past him hard on his way to leave, embarrassed but grinning grudgingly even as a flush lit him all the way to the tips of his perfect ears. It was all Kageyama could do not to lean in and kiss him right there.

Instead, like always, he let him walk away.

They graduate. Kageyama gets recruited; Hinata makes it into an okay college with an excellent team. They keep in touch. Sometimes that almost feels like enough. Every once in a while they stay up all night chatting, exchanging memes or talking seriously or something in between.

 **Hinata 3:37 AM:** esports is totally sports!!!  
**You 3:37 AM:** ESPORTS IS NOT A PHYSICAL ACTIVITY  
**Hinata 3:38 AM:** ITS EMOTIONAL EXCURSION  
**Tsukishima 3:38 AM:** *Exertion.  
**You 3:39 AM:** by that definition watching soap operas is a sport  
**Hinata 3:44 AM:** oh god youre such an elitist. you know what i mean. you dont have to be jumpign around a court for it to be about teamwork and winning and concentration and training!!!  
**You 3:44 AM:** your face is about teamwork and winning etc  
**Tsukishima 3:44 AM:** GO TO SLEEP.

 **New private message**  
**Hinata 3:51 AM:** kageyama, i dont want you to think i'm under valuing what we do. its the other way around. im saying that we should embrace working together and there should be a word for it that unites us instead of seperates us. kind of how like everything is art. gaming is art. volleyball is art  
**You 3:53 AM:** being a musician is art?  
**Hinata 3:53 AM:** i mean, duh??  
**You 3:55 AM:** you think you could ever be a musician?  
**Hinata 3:56 AM:** idk. i dont really have the interest or talent, but it does seem very glamorus. maybe in my next lifetime? lol

Volleyball keeps Kageyama busy. It's a good distraction. An honest, constructive passion. Tom Kyle had no exceptional talent, unless you counted kissing Hinata just right, catching him when he was flagging and plying him with orange rose bouquets, bubble baths, dinners of mediocre omelets and his favorite store-bought muffins. Tom Kyle was a warm, generous lover. Kageyama remembers sex in a distant, feelings-first way, the rhythm and kind words and afterglow.

Kageyama does not plan on losing his virginity.

When Hinata turns nineteen, he begins having debilitating headaches that take him off the court and into his dorm room with the curtains pulled. Yamaguchi brings over his oscillating table fan and arranges it so the cool air rustles Hinata's hair as he sleeps. "He's fine," Yamaguchi assures Kageyama over the phone. "His roommate's not home much, but he gave me permission to come over and take care of him whenever this happens."

"Migraines?" Kageyama asks. His heart is beating very fast.

"Or something. We'll take him to the doctor if they get any worse."

But they never have the chance to wait it out. On the twenty-five-year-anniversary of Shawnie Hinata's murder, right down to the hour, Hinata Shouyou collapses on his way to the bathroom, and is transported by ambulance to Sendai City Hospital.

He's in emergency surgery by the time Kageyama arrives by train. He shakes uncontrollably between Tsukishima and Yamaguchi in the waiting room, unable to speak until Nishinoya arrives an hour later with Asahi, pale and small. Kageyama stands, closes the distance between them in four big steps, and drives Nishinoya hard against the wall by double fistfuls of his collar. He means to shout, but all that comes out is a croak.

"You never told me I would lose him again!"

There's a blur of pain in his shoulder as Asahi extricates him from Nishinoya and hurls him to the ground, working on pure, protect-him instinct. Tsukishima is at Kageyama's side in an instant, trying to help him up, but Kageyama can't get his legs to cooperate. He sits on the ground and cries, head in his arms. He trembles so hard that every muscle aches.

 _Hinata_. His beauty, his world. In another lifetime, Kageyama woke up to him flipping pancakes and singing hip hop in his huge, effulgent voice; he pressed kisses into his hair; he danced with him at dusk, drunk off love and illegally-acquired aged whisky. In _this_ lifetime, he set perfect volleyballs to him. Watched him when he knew he wasn't going to get caught. He dreamt of running his mouth over his smooth collarbones, of them loving each other the way they used to. Maybe a part of him always thought that there was hope. But this is reality, and Kageyama is only on the carpet with sobs shaking out of him, and though Hinata is leaving him bloodlessly this time, it also means that Kageyama isn't there to hold him.

He cries himself out, eighteen-and-a-half years of grief pouring from him until he's physically sick. He crouches in front of a toilet, retching, Nishinoya's small hand stroking his back.

He's still there when Yamaguchi finds him and says, voice kind, "He's out of surgery now."

Kageyama staggers to his feet. "He's not—?"

"He's fine. It was a small benign tumor. They've removed it, and he's in recovery."

"Can I see him?" Kageyama demands.

"In a few hours. He's not awake yet. But his parents say he'll want to see you first."

Kageyama has to sit down again right there on the bathroom tile, and Yamaguchi and Nishinoya help him, laughing. "Why didn't you tell me he would be okay?" Kageyama asks Nishinoya.

"I didn't know!" Nishinoya insists.

"I did," says Yamaguchi, and that's casual right until he adds, "Tsukki says I lived past my previous death at fourteen."

Asahi comes in then to check on them, and Nishinoya makes a quick cutoff gesture, so they quiet. They sit side-by-side as they wait for Hinata, though, knees touching. For the first time, Kageyama catches the softness of Tsukishima's expression when he regards Yamaguchi, and the years of love that shine on before it—and behind it.

When Hinata's awake and done speaking to his parents, Kageyama slips in to see him.

"Hey, dumbass," he says, dropping into the seat beside the bed.

Hinata's head is wrapped in bandages, and he looks groggy, but he lets his fingers bump against Kageyama's arm until Kageyama takes his hand between both of his own. Without thinking, he kisses his knuckles. Hinata watches him. His eyes are half-lidded and changed. When their gazes meet, Hinata smiles. "Hi, Tom," he says dreamily.

Kageyama's heart fucking leaps. "What did you call me?"

"Kageyama? Dummy-yama. Are you...where were you? Were you here this whole time?"

 _I've been here forever_. "I was waiting outside."

"I was dreaming about you, I think. I was on a stage, and there were blue spotlights everywhere, and—I could _sing_ , and not just about peeing! There were a hundred people in the audience, but you were the only one I was looking at. I...I'm really tired, Kageyama. My head doesn't hurt anymore, but I really want to sleep."

"Then sleep," says Kageyama.

"Will you stay with me?"

"Of course I will."

He rests, then, and Kageyama holds onto his hand for hours. His family comes and goes. _They let me see the tumor_ , says Natsu, thirteen and gleefully grim, lids dark with eyeshadow. _It was lumpy. Like two little bullets._

It's not quite easy after that. Hinata recovers within the timeframe the surgeon gave his parents, but it's hard work keeping him off the court, and Yamaguchi reports that he keeps trying to goad him into races during their slow morning walks. For the first time in history, Kageyama ducks out of weekend practice to spend time with Hinata, and the two of them watch shitty movies in his dorm room and eat eggs and rice and dusty pats of sakuramochi. On Saturday evening, they fall asleep, heads listing together as they drowse in the same armchair. 

Hinata wakes up screaming.

Kageyama holds him as he thrashes, his fists pressed to his temples. It takes him a long time to calm down, and when he does, he's crying. "It was like everything went wrong," he sobs. "I couldn't see, there was this horrible screeching in my ears, my head was _exploding_ with pain—the only good thing was you were there; you were holding me, and you were saying my name over and over again—"

He pauses, panting. His pupils are huge.

"Well— _someone's_ name, anyway. I was so hurt, Kageyama, but I felt safe. Safe as I—as I went away."

"You're okay," Kageyama tells him. "You're here with me."

He rocks him, and it feels so right, Hinata in his arms again as he comes down from the nightmare. Eventually Hinata ends up resting against Kageyama's shoulder, lips almost touching his throat. Kageyama can feel his every breath, warm and damp and finally slowing. After a moment of hesitation, Hinata's hand comes up to cup Kageyama's cheek. He doesn't look at him as he speaks.

"You ever think you were born to love someone?" he asks.

It precedes the first kiss of their new lives. They touch lips for a long time before Kageyama applies the faintest of pressure. Then Hinata is surging up and straddling him, shoving him hard against the couch as he drives their mouths together, breaking for the next hour only to grin and laugh and breathe.

The next morning, Kageyama slips out from beneath Hinata, pulls a blanket over him, and steps into the hallway to call Nishinoya.

"So he kind of remembers," he summarizes. "Do you think I should tell him the rest?"

"Hell, no," says Nishinoya immediately. "Let him have the nightmares. He'll always wake up to you: that's the important part."

"Any updates on Asahi?"

"Well, he burnt the shit out of a piece of toast this morning. It's probably going to be a long time before he's making me pistacchio cream crostata again. Or maybe never. And that's cool too. It's been kind of fun winning him back again, and I love that he blushes so much now, and he's got a _way_ bigger—"

"Nishinoya, please!"

"I was going to say 'heart.' Wow, Tom."

"It's Tobio now," says Kageyama.

"Indeed it is."

Kageyama hangs up and returns to the dorm room. Hinata is just stirring, morning light sweeping in on top of him, messy bangs brushed down over his hairline where he will have a small scar from the surgical site. He smiles when he sees Kageyama standing there, and he reaches for him, lips still swollen. "Tobio," he says, testing it out. "My boyfriend, Tobio."

"Shouyou," Kageyama replies. He sits back down, and the two of them hold each other, fingers twining together. Kageyama kisses Hinata again and again and doesn't think about bullets. In any language, in any lifetime, he swears to keep finding the sounds that mean 'I love you.'


End file.
